THE GOLD BUG VARIATIONS
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Very few economists think this would be a good idea. The argument against it is one of pragmatism, not principle. First, a gold standard would have all the disadvantages of any system of rigidly fixed exchange rates--and even economists who are enthusiastic about a common European currency generally think that fixing the European currency to the dollar or yen would be going too far. Second, and crucially, gold is not a stable standard when measured in terms of other goods and services. On the contrary, it is a commodity whose price is constantly buffeted by shifts in supply and demand that have nothing to do with the needs of the world economy--by changes, for example, in dentistry.

The United States abandoned its policy of stabilizing gold prices back in 1971. Since then the price of gold has increased roughly tenfold, while consumer prices have increased about 250 percent. If we had tried to keep the price of gold from rising, this would have required a massive decline in the prices of practically everything else--deflation on a scale not seen since the Depression. This doesn't sound like a particularly good idea.

So why are Jack Kemp, the Wall Street Journal, and so on so fixated on gold? I did not fully understand their position until I read a recent letter to, of all places, the left-wing magazine Mother Jones from Jude Wanniski--one of the founders of supply-side economics and its reigning guru. (One of the many comic-opera touches in the late unlamented Dole campaign was the constant struggle between Jack Kemp, who tried incessantly to give Wanniski a key role, and the sensible economists who tried to keep him out.) Wanniski's main concern was to deny that the rich have gotten richer in recent decades; his letter is posted on the Mother Jones Web site, and makes interesting reading.

But, particularly noteworthy was the following passage:

Quote:

First let us get our accounting unit squared away. To measure anything in the floating paper dollar will get us nowhere. We must convert all wealth into the measure employed by mankind for 6,000 years, i.e., ounces of gold. On this measure, the Dow Jones industrial average of 6,000 today is only 60 percent of the DJIA of 30 years ago, when it hit 1,000. Back then, gold was $35 per ounce. Today it is $380-plus. This is another way of saying that in the last 30 years, the people who owned America have lost 40 percent of their wealth held in the form of equity. ... If you owned no part of corporate America 30 years ago, because you were poor, you lost nothing. If you owned lots of it, you lost your shirt in the general inflation.

Never mind the question of whether the Dow Jones industrial average is the proper measure of how well the rich are doing. What is fascinating about this passage is that Wanniski regards gold as the appropriate measure of wealth, regardless of the quantity of other goods and services that it can buy. Since the dollar was de-linked from gold in 1971, the Dow has risen about 700 percent, while the prices of the goods we ordinarily associate with the pursuit of happiness--food, houses, clothes, cars, servants--have gone up only about 250 percent. In terms of the ability to buy almost anything except gold, the purchasing power of the rich has soared; but Wanniski insists that this is irrelevant, because gold, and only gold, is the true standard of value. Wanniski, in other words, has committed the sin of King Midas: He has forgotten that gold is only a metal, and that its value comes only from the truly useful goods for which it can be exchanged.

Gold is only a metal. Goods are only goods. Money is only money? You know if you are earning more than you need, I could use more.

Why do you spew such long pastes and write so little about them? Do you not have words of your own you can use? If it's a question of not having the time, do you think that is a problem confined to your own peculiar perception of the universe?

I'm sure a proper answer to all these questions would save many years of intense deprogramming.

Well to do people do a lot of talking about gold and silver as if they're money, but what they don't realise is that any money based on a consumable is a dwindling resource, which coupled with an expanding population makes for stupid monetary policy._________________

juniper wrote:

you experience political reality dilation when travelling at american political speeds. it's in einstein's formulas. it's not their fault.

Gold is only a metal. Goods are only goods. Money is only money? You know if you are earning more than you need, I could use more.

Why do you spew such long pastes and write so little about them? Do you not have words of your own you can use? If it's a question of not having the time, do you think that is a problem confined to your own peculiar perception of the universe?

I'm sure a proper answer to all these questions would save many years of intense deprogramming.

a. I am of the opinion that the vast majority of people don't click through to the article.
b. I do trynot to post too much, just 2-3 paragraphs. Sometimes, the topic deserves more (say, if it's a little more academic, like this short essay by Krugman).
c. I don't usually bother commenting, because I feel it's traditional/customary not to comment too much (if at all) in the OP about your link._________________Jesus Could Be Their Candidate and the Republicans Would Still Lose

Former Gov. Charlie Crist: Here's why I'm backing Barack Obama
I’ve studied, admired and gotten to know a lot of leaders in my life. Across Florida, in Washington and around the country, I've watched the failure of those who favor extreme rhetoric over sensible compromise, and I've seen how those who never lose sight of solutions sow the greatest successes.

As America prepares to pick our president for the next four years — and as Florida prepares once again to play a decisive role — I'm confident that President Barack Obama is the right leader for our state and the nation. I applaud and share his vision of a future built by a strong and confident middle class in an economy that gives us the opportunity to reap prosperity through hard work and personal responsibility. It is a vision of the future proven right by our history.

We often remind ourselves to learn the lessons of the past, lest we risk repeating its mistakes. Yet nearly as often, our short-term memory fails us. Many have already forgotten how deep and daunting our shared crisis was in the winter of 2009, as President Obama was inaugurated. It was no ordinary challenge, and the president served as the nation's calm through a historically turbulent storm.

The president's response was swift, smart and farsighted. He kept his compass pointed due north and relentlessly focused on saving jobs, creating more and helping the many who felt trapped beneath the house of cards that had collapsed upon them.

more importantly

Quote:

As Republicans gather in Tampa to nominate Mitt Romney, Americans can expect to hear tales of how President Obama has failed to work with their party or turn the economy around.

But an element of their party has pitched so far to the extreme right on issues important to women, immigrants, seniors and students that they've proven incapable of governing for the people. Look no further than the inclusion of the Akin amendment in the Republican Party platform, which bans abortion, even for rape victims.

The truth is that the party has failed to demonstrate the kind of leadership or seriousness voters deserve.

Pundits looking to reduce something as big as a statewide election to a single photograph have blamed the result of my 2010 campaign for U.S. Senate on my greeting of President Obama. I didn't stand with our president because of what it could mean politically; I did it because uniting to recover from the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes was more important than party affiliation. I stood with our nation's leader because it was right for my state.

greece is fucking pissed right now because they want to go create a shitload of money out of thin air to pay their debts just like the US did at least twice under obama and at least once under bush.

lefties whine about how deflation is bad, but their fiscal retardation has them pushing for mass inflation. seriously, oil was under 1.50 under a decade ago. oil didn't magically disappear causing prices to go up. no, the government massively devalued the US dollar. meanwhile, they buffered the price by watering it down with ethanol (that didn't last long). they didn't actually print extra hard currency... they issued it out of nowhere.

Republicans Should Stop Talking About Moocher Class
The U.S. in fiscal 2012 will spend about $210 billion on food stamps, unemployment insurance and welfare. Add in Medicaid and the tab swells to about $485 billion. Still, it’s small beer compared with the $1.3 trillion the U.S. will spend on Social Security and Medicare alone. Include $700 billion for defense, and the moocher class’s bounty looks even smaller.

And that doesn’t account for the ample government benefits -- farm subsidies, oil and gas allowances, and other corporate welfare -- many moocher-class critics get, or the tax breaks for mortgage interest, employer-provided health insurance and charitable contributions.

The moocher-class mythologists forget that the U.S. just went through its worst recession in 75 years, and that unemployment has exceeded 8 percent for almost four years. The U.S. is on the verge of having a permanent jobless class made up largely of middle-age workers whose occupations have been destroyed because of automation and globalization.

The moocher fabulists also ignore data showing that U.S. incomes have stagnated for a decade, and that inequality has skyrocketed. The top-earning 1 percent of households now bring home about 20 percent of total income, versus about 10 percent in 1970. Recent studies conclude that upward mobility is easier in Europe than in the U.S. So much for Republican nightmares about the U.S. becoming a European-style welfare state.

The Pew Research Center reported last week that the U.S. middle class just experienced a lost decade, shrinking for the first time since World War II. Its median household income fell 4.8 percent to $69,487 in 2010 from an inflation-adjusted $72,956 in 2001. Median wealth (including retirement savings and home values, minus debt) tumbled an even greater 28 percent, to $93,150 from $129,582, largely because of the housing crash.

Another party shibboleth is that Obama’s stimulus spending shifted wealth from “makers to takers.” It’s more accurate to say that the stimulus -- by most economists’ reckoning, required medicine -- was a giant earmarking exercise that sent tax dollars back to the districts of lawmakers in both parties. Without it, an economy that shrank 6.3 percent in 2008 would have fallen into an abyss.

Republicans Should Stop Talking About Moocher Class
The U.S. in fiscal 2012 will spend about $210 billion on food stamps, unemployment insurance and welfare. Add in Medicaid and the tab swells to about $485 billion. Still, it’s small beer compared with the $1.3 trillion the U.S. will spend on Social Security and Medicare alone.

All of that is Moocher Class, but it is not all of the Moocher Class.

Moocher Class needs to stop mooching. Then we can discuss what we will or won't talk about. Also, see amendment the first._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

I think some people think that the first amendment excuses people from being personally responsible for what they say. Taken further, I think some people have come to the conclusion that they must speak on each and every issue, and bully any and all opponents into submission. Which is probably good if you are a politician, but bad if you are protesting the noise of a Angels clubhouse solo.

Free speech is actually free only as long as the political climate allows it. Try plotting a bombing and see how far cries of "but free speech, but but but" last. You will be whisked away, even if your heart wasn't in it.

Republicans Should Stop Talking About Moocher Class
The U.S. in fiscal 2012 will spend about $210 billion on food stamps, unemployment insurance and welfare. Add in Medicaid and the tab swells to about $485 billion. Still, it’s small beer compared with the $1.3 trillion the U.S. will spend on Social Security and Medicare alone.

All of that is Moocher Class, but it is not all of the Moocher Class.

Moocher Class needs to stop mooching. Then we can discuss what we will or won't talk about. Also, see amendment the first.

It's reported that a couple dozen House Republicans engaged in an alcohol-induced frolic, in one case nude, in the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is said to have walked on water, calmed a storm, and, nearby, turned water into wine and performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

Rep. Todd Akin, Missouri's Republican nominee for Senate, suggests women's bodies have mysterious ways to repel the seed of "legitimate" rapists. He spends the next 48 hours rejecting GOP demands that he quit the race.

Weather forecasts show a storm, likely to grow into Hurricane Isaac, may be chugging toward ... Tampa, where Republicans will open their quadrennial convention today.

Coincidence? Or part of some Intelligent Design? By their own logic, Republicans and their allies should be concerned that Isaac is a form of divine retribution.

Last year, Rep. Michele Bachmann said an East Coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene were attempts by God "to get the attention of the politicians." The conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck said last year that the Japanese earthquake and tsunami were God's "message being sent" to that country. A year earlier, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson tied a Haitian earthquake to that country's "pact to the devil." Previously, Robertson argued that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for abortion, while the Rev. John Hagee said it was God punishing homosexuality.

REUTERS: Tropical storm Isaac has been downgraded to a "diabolical incursion" after Rape-ublicans admitted they have been summoning demons from hell to speak at their convention.

GOP spokesman James Davis said: "we've got a few surprises lined up to save our flagging campaign. You never can tell what you'll get when you summon demons but we're expecting to see at least one ex Republican President in the lineup - maybe more.

Residents of Tampa are being warned to stay indoors and hide their first-born.